Recently, there exist digital multifunction devices having a copying function, a printer function, a facsimile function, and the like. In such a digital multifunction device, there are two or more areas generating image data. For example, at the time of copying, an image is inputted from a scanner of the device itself. Further, at the time of printing, an image described in a page description language is transmitted via an external interface from a personal computer at the exterior. The multifunction device develops the page description language into image data at the interior thereof. The image data is temporarily stored in a storage device in the multifunction device, for example, a hard disk or the like. At the time of printing, the image data is read out of the hard disk, and printed.
Accompanying a rise in the need for improved data security in recent years, among the digital multifunction devices, a multifunction device which encodes and stores image data has appeared. In Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-303440, there is disclosed a copier with an encoding function, and there has been shown a technique in which image information of a document or a drawing to stored is stored in a storage means, and at that time, the image information is encoded in order to improve the security, and is decoded at the time of using thereof.
However, with respect to the multifunction devices in which image data is encoded and handled, for example, there can be considered a multifunction device in which both of image information from a scanner and a page description language (PDL) from a personal computer connected thereto are handled, and when the both compete with one another, there is the problem that a sufficient processing speed cannot be obtained because one processing is delayed if the other processing is given priority.